A maternal diet high in saturated fat impairs offspring hippocampal function in a sex-specific manner.

While a maternal diet high in saturated fat is likely to affect foetal brain development, whether the effects are the same for male and female offspring is unclear. As a result, we randomly assigned female, Sprague-Dawley rats to either a control, or high-fat diet (HFD; 45% of calories from saturated fat) for 10 weeks. A range of biometrics were collected, and hippocampal function was assessed at both the tissue level (by measuring synaptic plasticity) and at the behavioural level (using the Morris water maze; MWM).

Sustained Arc expression in adult-generated granule cells.

The dentate gyrus (DG) plays a critical role in memory formation and maintenance. Fitting this specialized role, the DG has many unique characteristics. In addition to being one of the few places in which new neurons are continually added in adulthood, the region also shows a unique long-term sustained transcriptional response of the immediate-early gene Arc to sensory input.